Poorly chicken

[bronze]

I had both the spray ready made (pink) and the stuff in a bottle which is def 1:10

 

its the same stuff different brand name as total mite kill, which was cheaper

[alison]

I have just bought a 5kg drum of Diatom for £28, much cheaper than a 500gm tube for £6.50! The shop said they have sold huge amounts of red mite powder, diatom and poultry shield this week.

 

Lots of people have red imte and have never had it before.

[Snowy]

I ws at Merrydale this morning and there was a queue of people picking up red mite products!

[Doris 12]

Why is it so rife at the moment? Is it a seasonal thing?

[Patricia W]

I think it's case of the weather being very kind to red mites and ost wild life has peak seasons anyway. I remember our cat flea peak season was November...

 

Tricia

[Redwing]

I spent over three hours today getting rid of red mite in two Eglus, one wooden house and the WIR

 

I got through 3 litres of Poultry Sheild

 

Last time I hosed off the mites then treated the plastic but found that the mites clambered back on so this time I treated them first then hosed the dead mites off then treated again and think there is a better chance of reducing the numbers

 

I have two other wooden houses and one Eglu that are fine luckily, the clear Eglu has holidaying hens in it so thank goodness it is clear

[Lesley]

We also spent a few hours and used a few litres of Poultry Shield sorting out Eglus yesterday! We've only ever had red mite in the wooden bars of a Mark 1 before but we had them under the poo trays of the others as well this time. It is a bad year for red mite.

 

All ours are clear now but I will do them again next weekend just to make sure.

[Snowy]

If you have a cube and keep the door open, check behind the door - I even found them there!!

[Kit]

Thanks for this post..

 

I thought I should check mine before leaving for the Lake this morning and yes I found some. ..now 3 hours later...

 

 

I have dismantled the whole thing...power washed it, sprinkled poultry shield everywhere, threw away the tarpaulin and treated the hens as well....Took ages catching them as they were free ranging on the paddock.

 

I have also sprinkled red mite powder in with the bedding in the nesting box...will check again when back later in the week.

[Janty]

I was clear last year, thankfully but this year we have a problem. Luckily we are about to totally disinfect the whole run but it's been a battle dismantling and disinfecting the cubes every few days to break the cycle....especially with three broody brahmas, a broody cochin and a broody silkie.

[CallyChook]

does anyone have a photo of what these mites look like? I dont think I have any, but when I googled it didnt come up with much and it'd be nice to know what im looking for. I live in the country with all sorts of reddy black bugs about and have become a bit confused about what I am looking to see.

 

ta!

[Tutti Frutti]

Photos and info here

[abwsco]

Some pics here

[CallyChook]

oooh, thanks folks! They're definitely not what I have at the moment around my coop, and besides, my little blighter things seem to be around in the day as well as night. Not seen any on the chickens- I htink I must have some non-harmful little beetly things just happened to have landed on my coop co-incidentally. I spray every other month with total mite kill (red spray cannister thingie) and dust the birds weekly-fortnightly at the latest and also the house, with diatom powder. They get vermX monthly and once a week of an evening get brought into the house and inspected under the lights to just check for anything nasty.

[chelsea]

Why is it so rife at the moment? Is it a seasonal thing?

 

It must be a particularly bad year, humidity maybe??

 

First time in over 4 years that we've had red mite in our eglu.

[Redwing]

We are also battling it here

 

I've just bought some Ficam W which I am hoping will mark the end of it!

[shoura]

How frequently can you use Frontline (the drops on back of neck) on the chooks?

Have just done the dogs again as they had caught some mites again.....I stood one dog on a white surface and gave her a rub and a few mites came falling off.....

[Jools]

If there is one thing you can always be sure of ....................... every year is the worst year for red mite lol.

[shoura]

Redwing, where did you get the Ficam W from? It looks like really toxic stuff!!

The American website said it's not being made any more

[sezra]

I have just read all of these posts and now I am worried. I gave it a good scrub out a week ago but I am thinking it might be an idea to check it and give it another spray and sprinkle with Diatom. First job tomorrow, Eglu checking. Fingers crossed....

[lortloaf]

Hey there, interesting thread!

 

I (or rather, my excellent carpentering father with a little assistance) have just finished constructing a little hen house, about the size of an Eglu Cube, and an adjoining 2.5m run (but I am sure we'll be in the garden every day watching them free range once they're settled ). And all this talk of red mite is making me worry, the hen house is empty at the minute while we arrange for some lucky ladies to move in.

 

So far we have creosoted the outer sides, roof and the little chicken door. I read that creosote prevents the little blighter's from surviving on the wood, but would it be safe/necessary/a good idea to do the inside too? It has been a few days and the outside still SMELLS very strongly, I am also worried about that overwhelming the little chickens too..

 

If I may be so bold, what other advice can anyone here offer to prevent red mite in a wooden coop?

 

I'll give a little description of our garden situation; we live in the London suburbs (Borough of Ealing) and the gardens on the estate are very large. Our garden is almost always visited by Wood Pigeons - I think it is the same family nesting in our big (big!) tree every year, it is nice to see the young pigeons feeding with their mother in Spring, you can always spot them sitting on the roof aerials or on the shed roof. Crows occasionally make a visit, but usually they only sit at the tops of trees and crow at the little birds, Sparrows and such.

We do not put food out in the garden (s"Ooops, word censored!"s or any special wild bird feed), we do not have a bird bath (nor do any of our immediate surrounding neighbours) there is also no compost heap as the council has a weekly food waste collection programme, so food waste is contained in a little green bucket).

Our garden still remains a bird haven, perhaps they like the somewhat unkempt lawn? It doesn't get really long, it just looks a bit shabby and patchy

 

Oh and another sneaky question, the hen house is also underneath an apple tree, not many birds sit in this tree - the Sparrows like it as the Pigeons and Crows seem to hate it!

It only grows apples every.. two or three years, there used to be another identical tree on the other side of the garden and they would take turns in growing apples every other year, but that other tree has been dispatched to make space, and now the remaining tree must be lonely.. Anyway, it drops little fat cooking apples. I'm sure these are fine for the chickens to eat, but the apples are nearly always rotten when they fall as caterpillars and all sorts of bugs hollow them out.

I suppose the chickens are not silly, they wont eat wrinkled, yucky, hollow and orange apples. But would it be a good idea to remove them from the garden? We usually just let them rot into the ground.

 

Anyhow, that is enough typing for this morning! Thanks!

[Egluntyne]

I'd remove the apples, purely because they will be wasp magnets.

 

Back to the coop.

 

Roofing felt is one of the favourite hiding places for red mite, so if your Dad has used this, it might be an idea to replace it with onduline or similar.

[The Dogmother]

I've found Buz Busters powder to be brilliant; it contains permethrin and seems to kill all the crawlies that go near it.

[Redwing]

Yes you can creosote inside the house - I did one of mine just along the vertical joins (for quickness at the time) and the red mite arent stupid - they live in the horizontal joins only so its out with the paintbrushes again (but it kind of proves that the creosote does the trick..)

 

you'll need to keep the chickens out for at least a week though so its really only viable if you have a spare house

[lortloaf]

Aha! Thanks for your replies and sorry for such a long windy post (insomnia, yay)

 

I probably wont be picking up my chooks until next weekend, so I'll find my brush and give the inside a nice coat of death-juice

 

And yes! the wasps! Arrgh, I had a think about it and the tree actually hasn't produced any apples for 3 years now, so maybe it's gone through the tree-menopause.

Are wasps a big issue for chickens? I haven't had a sting in years, touch wood , and I can't really remember how painful it is. although obviously it's enough to make me think.. "stay still, hold your breath.. sod this!" and run away as fast as I can. But yes, would a wasp sting cause any major upsets to a chicken?

We didn't have many wasps last year or so far this year (touch wood again) besides a single MEGA WASP. Holy moly I swear that thing was 2 inches long, yuck . Oops I'm doing it again!

 

My dad did put a layer of felt on the roof, despite me moaning (as I was previously told it is bad for them). I'll have to replace it, although it's made of the same wood that the sides are made of, so surely it could weather the elements on it's own? hmmm, wood is a slippery character.

 

Oh well! Thanks again, and I'll look into some powder for dusting my chooks and sprinkling around the coop as well! Tata

 

Edit: d'oh, I forgot about my latest concern! The run we made has been layered with chicken wire (using about 5000 hoopy staple clip things that I gave myself tennis elbow hammering in), but I did a little googling and found people saying foxes can actually.. chew through it!

 

Now the only chicken wire I have ever encountered in my entire life has been made from galvanised steel - foxes can chew steel wire? I know they are desperate and all, but is it really worth it when there is a wealth of food s"Ooops, word censored!"s in the street from silly neighbours who put their black bags out the night before instead of waking up before 10am and putting it out in the morning (pet peeve! although perhaps this "easy" source of food will help dissuade the foxes from my hens?).

 

The "holes" in the chicken wire seem quite big, I guess about an inch and a half. I think I might spend the weekend doubling it up just in case.. I already laid a fair width of wire around the outside of the run (attached like a sort of skirty Eglu rip-off idea) with a tonne of bricks on it, so hopefully no digging.

 

Just first time jitters I guess, but I want to do everything I can to prevent any tragedies or nasty experiences for the chooks!

 

Edit 2: double d'oh! Forgot another question, I promise this one is a quickie! We have bought some Layers pellets but it's looking likely that we're actually getting some growers (10-11 weeks Pekins and hopefully Orpingtons if I can reassure the breeder that I wont let them squash the Pekins! ), would they be OK to feed Layer's or should I go get a little bag of Growers feed?

 

I did google this one but could only find people doing it the other way around.. changing from growers to layers. I have yet to find a further explanation to the difference between the two yet too, besides the cocci medicine.

Oops it's getting long again!